Politicians are not alone in using “spin” to sway their constituents. Researchers do too, according to two presentations at the International Congress of Peer Review and Biomedical Publication in Vancouver, Canada. Two preliminary explorations of this phenomenon were presented, one on studies with non-significant results, the other on studies claiming positive results.

Isabelle Boutron, of the Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Oxford, and University Paris Descartes, and colleagues said …